Porsche and Hyundai just beat Lucid where it matters most
- The Porsche Taycan aced the German EV fast charging test, beating the Lucid Air.
- The Hyundai Ioniq 6 also performs better and comes closest to the Taycan.
- The combination of consistent charging curves and long range determines which EVs are truly roadworthy.
The best EVs for the road combine excellent real-world range with fast charging speeds. You’d think this combination would make the Lucid Air Grand Touring the best possible long-distance vehicle. But that’s not the case, as it didn’t even make the top three in a new long-distance EV test conducted by Germany’s biggest car club.
German ADAC conducts a road test that measures the long-distance driving ability of all new EVs, but does not destroy them during testing. Instead, it simulates a mixed dyno route (known as the ADAC EcoTest cycle), drains the battery until it has 10% left, then charges the car for 20 minutes and records how much range it gets. It then adds up the distance traveled before charging and the range gained by charging.
ADAC has been doing this test for some time. The Lucid Air Grand Touring used to be in third place, but with more cars making the top ten this year, it has now dropped to fifth place. It still has the largest battery of any EV tested (112 kilowatt-hours) and the second-highest range before needing a 10% charge, but it loses out when it comes time to charge. This shows how quickly the EV field is improving.
The Lucid is designed to charge up to 300 kilowatts, giving it a 10% to 80% charge time of around 20 minutes. However, in ADAC testing, which uses the same 300kW Alpitronic station for all cars, it never even came close. It peaked at 243kW and showed a rather poor charge curve, where the output had already dropped to 145kW when it reached 50% and at 70% it dropped below 100kW.
That’s why it only got 192 miles (309 km) on a 20-minute charge, which, along with a measured range of 341 miles (550 km), adds up to just 533 miles (859 km). That’s still a very good result, and the Air is still one of the best long-range EVs, but there are four other EVs that will take you further in the same amount of time.
The best performer was the Porsche Taycan Performance Plus with a 97 kWh battery and a combined rating of 609 miles (981 km). It only managed 318 miles (518 km) before reaching 10% and engaging. However, its charging curve was much better than the Lucid. It immediately started charging at 290kW, then increased to 295kW and didn’t drop below 250kW until it reached 63%. At 75% it was still pulling 200kW. Its average charging power was a very impressive 274.9 kW, while the Lucid only managed an average of 153.4 kW.
Porsche Taycan charging curve
Photo: ADAC
Notably, the second-place vehicle only has a 77.4 kWh battery, but somehow fared better than vehicles near or above 100 kWh. In second place is the single-engine Hyundai Ioniq 6, which was able to travel 311 miles (502 km) before charging and then recover 266 miles (429 km) in 20 minutes for a total of 578 miles (931 km). Its charge curve isn’t nearly as impressive as the Porsche’s, starting at 120kW and only reaching its peak of 235kW at 52%, but its average is still better than the Lucid’s 189.7kW. Considering how cheap the Hyundai is compared to the Porsche and Lucid, that’s amazing.
The Audi A6 E-Tron is now third in the rankings, traveling 325 miles (524 km) before charging to 10% and gaining 246 miles (397 km) while charging, for a total of 572 miles (921 km). It runs at 800 volts and has a claimed maximum charge rate of 270kW, which it actually exceeded, peaking at 281kW and staying between 10% and 27% above its claimed maximum before dropping to 200kW and below.
Although this is a laboratory test, its conclusions show exactly what is needed to make an electric car suitable for long-distance driving. The usual headline numbers like battery capacity, claimed range or peak charging performance don’t tell the whole story – consistency matters. So while everyone points to claimed range as the defining number for a long-range EV, this test shows it’s a bit more complicated than that, as more factors come into play.
ADAC’s current TOP 10 best long-range EVs
Photo: ADAC
The fact that the Taycan was able to maintain power over almost 300kW for most of the charging time is truly remarkable and shows that making batteries bigger and bigger is not the only way to go. We knew it was a hero on the road, but it’s surprising that it’s followed by the affordable Ioniq 6, which outperformed all other EVs thanks to its consistent performance and charging efficiency that allow it to get more miles from a battery that’s significantly smaller than the other competitors at the top of this list.
ADAC says it uses a 300kW charger as a benchmark, as this is now the most common power rating for DC fast chargers in Germany. However, it will likely update its testing procedure to include a more powerful charger, as there are already plenty of 400kW chargers online in the country and there are several new EVs that can take advantage of it all, such as the BMW iX3 or the Zeekr 7X, vehicles that could top this ADAC ranking next year when they pass the same test.